Given our horrendous luck picking Stars, picking the Goat each year is waaaaay more fun.

Goat selection evolved a few years back when we had a buddy that would randomly pick an Oiler each game and rag on him mercilessly. “That dang (insert player here.) He is the worst player on the ice. (Insert GM here) should be embarrassed that he picked such a terrible player.”

Minutes later that same player would score and the same guy would be standing and high fiving everyone. “Look at (insert player here) go! Atta boy! I been sayin’ all year long that (insert player here) is gonna make some moves.”

FAIR WEATHER FANS

These types of fans can be found under every rock. Hating on every random player that draws their ire, loving them the very next minute - all in the name of being an "fan." The boys didn't think that it was sporting to cuss each and every Oiler only to shower them with praise on the next play and several half drunken arguments broke out over the span of a couple seasons to drive home the point.

Instead of playing our band wagon jumping friend on waivers, we all concocted the Goat. The Goat is intended to be the cause of all the team’s problems for the entire season. Goal just went in? Damn the Goat to hell. He wasn’t on the ice? Damn his stupid manner in which he sits on the bench.

The first year of two that we picked Grebeshkov to be our Goat was easily the best picking of our storied Goat picking career. Not only was Grebs brutal, but the team was too. We blamed him for most everything most nights and it allowed us to vent all Oilers related anger his way.

On a team that we hope finishes no higher than 30th place this year, picking the Goat is going to be key to maintaining your sanity.

LAST YEAR'S GOAT PROGNOSI

We picked dirty old Grebs last year too after such a successful 2008-09 campaign. He was traded later in the year, at a point that we were so disillusioned we barely even chirped him on the way out of town.

Here are some other great goat picks from last year

Massive call naming the Captain the Goat. On a team filled with suspects, he was one of the finest last year.

A pair of dandies here as well. As the season wore on Steady Steve wore out, then we all laughed as the Flames picked him up for reasons unknown.

Oh man, is this one ever wonderous. Commander Ender goes on an epic rant dusting off Penner as his goat and goes so far as to bold the sentence basically declaring 'if Penner was good he would have shown it already.'

That is rich creamery butter and exactly why we write these predictions down.

*laughs heartily*

2010-11 GOAT

Picking a marginal player who will be called up from time to time defeats the purpose of picking a Goat. A good Goat logs mad minutes during the year so that he can be often cursed for his goat like stupidity and insatiable desire to eat trash and wear a bell.

Our expectations for the 2010-11 are low. In fact we actually want the team to finish last to secure another lottery pick. Exciting last place hockey Nation, that is the ticket for the coming year.

In a strange twist of fate the Goat could actually be considered a Star for assisting in the effort. That thought just blew our mind as did the picture of the Goat wearing underwear.

Because of the fact that we have him signed for all eternity and because of the fact that will ensure he sees mad game time this year our 2010-11 goat is:

AND THE WINNER IS

Nikolai Khabibulin.

Dang you to all hell Khabibulin! Why are you signed for so long at such a high price? When the Oilers sent you the $70 million dollar offer sheet, why didn’t you have your agent fax back “this is grossly overpriced. We agree to sign a one year deal at league minimum instead.”

Any player agent worth his salt and any player with a heart beating in his chest would have done this.

But no, you had to go with accepting the deal and blowing both feet off the Oilers in the process. We won’t even touch the "glug-glug-vroom-vroom" over the summer, but best believe that didn’t help your case. Nor does the wonky ass spine you are toting around.

Good luck BAAAAABIBULIN*

*har har har

Blog so hard motherf**ckers try and find me.
Email me at wanyegretz@gmail.com or tweet me @wanyegretz provided it is about Jordan Eberle or babes.

I know Wayne is going to be all over me like a Flames fan on a Adam Lambert poster but i am changing my goat pick from yesterday. Yesterday i picked Taylor Hall, not fully understanding the true meaning of the goat or the utter disdain i would need to have for the goat in order for him to be my goat. (plus Wayne mocked me for it)

So today i choose: Tom Gilbert. He will be called on to be a big leader and example to the kids this year, and will crack under pressure

The Goat is of course, Gene Principe. I can hear the puns now, "And they all lived happy Eberle after in the Taylor Hall of Fame and had a big Pjaarvi for all the little Brule-dies and gentlemen and they passed around fat Dubnyks and then ate both Stortini and Tambellini linguini and Ales was Colin Fraser to see why he spit on Shawn and why he was now wiping Horcoff his good friends face. Back to you guys.'

This one is easier. After sending a precious asset out of town, Oiler fans rejoiced in the return of a hulking defenceman who doesn't hit, doesn't fight, and has lost a few steps with his career on its last leg (and by leg I mean foot). Now he's pretending he's healthy for 2010; he feels like he did when he started his career with the Penguins, but we should all know that his time before hitting the IR is limited. Instead, we celebrate his arrival. We try to make him captain as he steps off the plane from Anaheim. Our Saviour. Sure.

Goat: Ryan Whitney. 23 games, -36.

Not to worry though, he will tell us that he just needs to rest his feet, and he'll be good to go for 2011 training camp enabling us to pick him as a multi-year goat. Meanwhile, Lubo will light it up in Anaheim and get traded at the deadline to a contender for a spectacular package of assets.

Holy moly people can't give poor penner a rest.The guy has prooven him self already .He had an amazing year in cali and a not terrible season a few years back and last year he had an amazing year. anytime someone hits 20 goals we want to throw 2 or 3 million well hell penner is doing that consitantly and overachieving that last year. Just because he CAN do more doesn't mean he always will i think he is a decent player and if one more person says he's unproven i will punch them in the weiner. The Golden Goat goes to whitney

Cogliano will be the goat for the masses this year, and while I don't think he'll do well in his new role, I'm not picking him. He's going to get enough hate around here that he doesn't need me riding him too.

My choice for this year's goat is going to be the very player who will be platooning the blueline with my selection for this year's star (Gilbert, for those of you who don't know)...RYAN WHITNEY.

Not only because I don't think he's as good as most seem to think, but also so that if/when Gilbert has a bad game or does something stupid, I can point to Whitney and say "Gilbert would be doing so much better if he didn't have to carry this boat anchor around all game!"

I think too many people have got caught up in what seemed like a personal vendetta by MacT with regards to DP. IMO MacT never liked Penner's laid back easygoing personality and he made him pay for it.

What I've never understood is the thought process that Penner's only good year was last year, and that he hasn't lived up to his contract. Year one he only led the Oilers in goal scoring with 23. Year two, even though MacT reduced his ice time both EV strength and PP he still led all forwards on the team in plus/minus and I believe he still managed 17 or 18 goals. And everyone knows about year three. Not only will Penner not be the goat this year. He has NEVER been this teams goat.

This year, if the Oilers use Horcoff in a scoring role and give him significant PP time he will end up the goat. If Horcoff is used in a secondary role and more of a checking PK role then Khabibulin will likely end up the goat due to yet another injury.

Let's go for a secondary goat. Also known as the Nanny Goat. My vote there will go to Colin Fraser. The Oilers are relying on him to take some of the heavy lifting from Horc but I don't think he'll be up to task.

Its true hey?!? As soon as the boys started growing the furry face caterpillars last year, they reeeally started sucking; and really can you blame the opposition? With moustaches that sad, gliding all over the ice, how could you take the Oilers seriously??

My goat is Dustin Penner. He'll lose the fans as he loses ice time with Hemsky to the rookie LWers and scores 40ish points, infuriating the fans who thought 30-30 DP was here to stay, resulting in calls for him to be traded. Around March DP will get into a public spat by saying he thought his days of working with Craig MacTavish were finished, to which Tom Renney will reply that he misses the work ethic of Jaromir Jagr.

I called Penner as the hero; he was THE MAN among boys last year and the kids will not be at the level for a couple of years.

For goat, it has to be Vandemeer. This town has a long tradition of chewing up and spitting out slow/unskilled/chaotic defensemen.

Ulanov the type of player I am talking about; he is a Cross between a Staios home kind of guy and the one Grebeshkoving up the puck at the opposition blue line. Just watching them Bergeroning the puck into little pieces makes you want to Poti your eyes out.

Cogs is my pick. He's either gonna blow up this season or he's gonna get sent down. He said all the rights things last year too. Even if he is making only a cool mill i still think he disappoints the most thus making him the Goat.

Horcoff is still an easy and possibly the most likely to be the right goat pick than KhabinBoozin. Signed through 2014-15 at a 5.5 mil hit makes him the #1 target even beyond the possibility of a 30 day jail sentance in mid-season!

I ended up picking Hemsky. If that band aid can't play more than 50games he deserves the damn horns! Especially if they make him the 13C and all he does is bail on practice early all year long.

edit: @WanyeHow come Souray isn't on the list?? There's a sh!t tonne of possibilities for him to be #1 goat. EI: We do trade his a$$ to someone in-conference like CBJ and he ends up taking Hall or one of the kids out for the year with a PP slap shot? ONLY to go on to have a 50 point season as they eek into the playoffs?!

Cogs is my pick. He's either gonna blow up this season or he's gonna get sent down. He said all the rights things last year too. Even if he is making only a cool mill i still think he disappoints the most thus making him the Goat.

How dare you Mx Powers, Cogs is my star, and he will be THE STAR this year.

Goat, I don't think a Stanley Cup winning team has a goat, but, just for for and to not look like a big chicken, I too will take Vanermeer, thats right, NOT cogs max powers, but Vandy, after all he did play for calgary!

I hate to say it, but poor #10's gonna get put in all sort of new, wonderful positions to fail this season. I like the player, dislike the contract (like everyone else) and truly believe that he deserves a better fate than hooking down Taylor Hall's missed assignment on a breakaway.

Vandermeer won't be playing nearly enough to be eligible for 'Goat' status... Obvious pick is Horcoff (who pays a supposed shut down center that much?? Oh wait - never mind), but to keep the conversation going - do we hop on the Penner bandwagon again, assuming he hasn't scored 10 to 15 goals in the first 30 games of the season??

Hmmm my 1st ever goat pick, this is something that dreams are made of. Do I go with the easy choices or try something new? What would Brian Botano do????
Ok, so my 1st ever goat pick is ..... Brule. With that brand spankin new contract I think he's going to stink out the joint.

Vandermeer won't be playing nearly enough to be eligible for 'Goat' status... Obvious pick is Horcoff (who pays a supposed shut down center that much?? Oh wait - never mind), but to keep the conversation going - do we hop on the Penner bandwagon again, assuming he hasn't scored 10 to 15 goals in the first 30 games of the season??

Your choices for a 6 dman are Vandermeer or Strudwick. Once injuries happen, like they alway do one of the 2 will be playing quite a bit.

This pick was easier than the star. There is no way he's going to live up to the over-hyped expectations, and he will instead be inevitably be blamed for not doing enough.

As far as who I think will actually be a problem this year, I got to go with Hemmer. He's complained publicly before, and I think when his ice time starts getting cut to give the kids more time, he's gonna want out.

Crème brulée, the delicious dessert, will be the goat. Brule is going to take a step back and bring all kinds of suckage. Goat, thy name is Brule.

How dare you pick Brule!?! That slapper of his is going to score all kinds of weak goals from the hash marks all year long... unless that's what you're expecting him to do; thus pulling us out of a lottery pick.

My goat this year is a man who thinks he is better than the rest of his two compadres. He outlandish spasms of when he snatches, whiffing at the puck in the air only to see him shrouded in red lights or sweeping his pads from side to side in the crease, throwing his stick away swatting, and failing from stopping the puck from crossing the red line.

My Goat: Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers

I have more faith in Dubnyk than I do with that guy in net.

He will log a lot of minutes because Khabi's back will wreck again....again!